You have heard the word, the phrase: 'vicious circle'. Let us make another phrase: 'virtuous circle'. In a vicious circle, one bad thing leads to another. For example, if you get angry then one anger leads you to more anger, and of course, more anger will lead you to still more anger. Now you are in a vicious circle. Each anger will make the habit of anger more strong, and will create more anger, and more anger will make the habit still more strong, and on and on. You move in a vicious circle which goes on becoming stronger and stronger and stronger.

Let us try a new word: virtuous circle. If you become aware, what Patanjali calls vivek, awareness; if you become aware: vairagya. Discrimination creates renunciation. If you become aware, suddenly you see that you are no more the body. Not that you renounce the body; in your very awareness the body is renounced. If you become aware, you become aware that these thoughts are not you.

In that very awareness those thoughts are renounced. You have started dropping them. You don't give them any more energy; you don't cooperate with them. Your cooperation has stopped, and they cannot live without your energy. They live on your energy, they exploit you. They don't have their own energy. Each thought that enters you partakes of your energy. And because you are kaivalya willing to give your energy, it lives there, it makes its abode there. Of course, then its children come, and friends, and relatives, and this goes on. Once you are a little aware, vivek brings vairagya, awareness brings renunciation. And renunciation makes you capable of becoming more aware.

And of course, more awareness brings more vairagya, more renunciation, and so on and so forth.

This is what I am calling the virtuous circle: one virtue leads to another, and each virtue becomes again a ground for more virtue to arise.

"This goes on," Patanjali says, "to the last moment" - what he calls, dharma megha samadhi. We will be coming to it later on. He calls it 'the cloud of virtue showering on you'. This virtuous circle, vivek leading to vairagya, vairagya leading to more vivek, vivek again creating more possibilities for vairagya, and so on and so forth - comes to the ultimate peak when the cloud of virtue showers on you: dharma megha samadhi.

Still, though, many intervals will be there. So don't be discouraged. Even if you have become very aware and in sudden moments you feel the pull, the upward pull of grace, and in certain moments you are in the stream, floating perfectly beautifully, with no effort, effortlessly, and everything is going and running smoothly, still there will be gaps.

Suddenly you will find yourself standing again on the riverbank just because of old habits. For so many lives you have lived on the bank. Just because of the old habit, again and again the past will overpower you. Don't be discouraged by it. The moment you see that you are again on the bank, again get down into the stream. Don't be sad about it, because if you become sad you will again be in a vicious circle. Don't be sad about it. Many times the seeker comes at very close quarters, and many times he loses the track. No need to be worried; again bring awareness. This is going to happen many times; it is natural. For so many millions of lives we have lived in unawareness - it is only natural that many times the old habit will start functioning.

A few anecdotes.

The boss was full of confidence as he approached the reception desk at a large hotel with his secretary and signed the register as Mr. and Mrs.

"Double or twin beds?" inquired the clerk.

He turned to his secretary and asked casually, "Would a double be alright, darling?"

"Yes, sir," she answered.

"Yes, sir," the wife was saying to the husband! - but just the old habit of being a secretary, continuously saying, "Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir." Habits become very ingrained, and they catch hold of you in such a way that unless you are very, very watchful, you will not even suspect.

It happened:

An indignant schoolteacher rang the local police station to complain that a crowd of young hooligans had chalked four-letter words all over her front door. "And what is more," she concluded, "they have not even spelled them right!"

A school teacher is just a school teacher. She is complaining against the four-letter words, but the basic complaint is that they have not even spelled them right. Continuously correcting the spelling of children....

Many times you will be pulled back, again and again and again. The struggle is hard, but not impossible. It is difficult, it is very arduous, but don't become sad and don't become discouraged.

Whenever you remember again, don't be worried about what has happened. Let your awareness again be established, that's all. Continuously establishing your awareness again and again and again will create a new impact inside your being, a new impression of virtue. One day, it becomes as natural as other habits.

"One who is able to maintain a constant state of desirelessness even towards the most exalted states of enlightenment..."

Patanjali calls it paravairagya: the ultimate renunciation. You have renounced the world: you have renounced greed, you have renounced money, you have renounced power; you have renounced everything of the outside. You have even renounced your body, you have even renounced your mind, but the last renunciation is the kaivalya renunciation of kaivalya itself, of moksha itself, of nirvana itself. Now you renounce even the idea of liberation, because that too is a desire. And desire, whatsoever its object, is the same. You desire money, I desire moksha.

Of course, my object is better than your object, but still my desire is the same as yours. Desire says, "I am not content as I am. More money is needed; then I will be contented. More liberation is needed; then I will be contented."

The quality of desire is the same, the problem of desire is the same. The problem is that the future is needed: "As I am, it is not enough; something more is needed. Whatsoever has happened to me is not enough. Something still has to happen to me; only then can I be happy."

This is the nature of desire: you need more money, somebody needs a bigger house, somebody thinks of more power, politics, somebody thinks of a better wife or a better husband, somebody thinks of more education, more knowledge, somebody thinks of more miraculous powers, but it makes no difference. Desire is desire, and desirelessness is needed.